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Friday, March 6, 2015

Conditioning is vitally important
to all horses in all disciplines from the elite three day eventer to the
weekend trail rider.Every horse needs
to be properly conditioned for the task they perform to prevent injuries and
other detrimental effects such as tying-up.There are multiple reasons to condition your horse.Conditioning helps the horse by increasing
cardiovascular fitness, strengthening support structures, increasing neuromuscular
coordination, and improving thermoregulation (the body’s ability to control
temperature).All of these things are
very important to keep you and your horse safe and healthy throughout any
activity.

Cardiovascular fitness encompasses
many things.First, the heart is a
muscle that through proper conditioning and over time, it’s strength and
pumping capacity will increase.As
pumping capacity increases the amount of beats necessary to supply properly
oxygenated blood to the body decreases (i.e. your heart rate decreases).This is why heart rate is such a great way to
monitor fitness.You can do this with a
heart rate monitor or by simply learning to take heart rate 5, 10, and 15
minutes after exercise.Overtime as your
horse reaches a better fitness state, the amount of time it takes for the heart
rate to return to normal and the peak heart rate your horse experiences should
decrease.As your horse gains fitness it
will be able to more efficiently oxygenate the system thereby increasing the
length of time in aerobic metabolism. Aerobic metabolism, during exercise, is
the most efficient way to supply energy for muscle contraction.Aerobic metabolism requires oxygen though so
once the body is pushed beyond its ability to oxygenate fully you enter into
anaerobic metabolism. Those of you that hit the gym or in other ways exercise
on a regular basis know well what lactic acid is.Horses just like humans produce lactic acid
when they push past their body’s limit to oxygenate entering into anaerobic
metabolism. Increased cardiovascular fitness leads to decreased anaerobic metabolism
and lactic acid production.Lactic acid
buildup leads to fatigue while exercising and muscle soreness.Significant fatigue while exercising
increases a horse’s chance of injury.So
you can see why cardiovascular fitness is so important.

Strengthening of support structures
takes more time than cardiovascular fitness.It is vitally important that a horse’s muscles, tendons, and ligaments
are up to the task at hand.If you put a
completely unfit horse back into work it can take 4-6 months for all the
support structures to completely strengthen depending on the intensity of the
horse’s job.This is why a horse is
brought back very slowly following a serious tendon/ligament injury.First the injured tendon needs to slowly
strengthen back to full capacity to avoid being reinjured.Secondly an injured horse has usually been on
stall rest so all support structures have weakened and need time to adapt to
exercise again.When starting into a
conditioning program it is important to carefully monitor your horse’s limbs on
a regular basis so heat or swelling can be picked up on immediately and
attended to properly.When a horse is
pushed to perform more than their support structures are ready for, they can
end up compensating, leading to lameness, soreness, and possible significant
injury.

Increased thermoregulation is tied
into cardiovascular fitness.Within 1-2 weeks of starting a regular
conditioning program the horse’s volume of plasma, red blood cells, and
hemoglobin increases.Plasma is the
liquid (non-cellular) part of the blood.Also over a period of months the amount of capillaries present in the
muscle increases.These increases help
better oxygenate muscles and cool the body.It is a common misconception that a fitter horse starts sweating later
and sweats less.In contrast the fitter
horse has a more efficient thermoregulation leading them to sweat sooner and
stay cooler.A fit horse is able to do
this due to increased blood volume and capillary system carrying blood to the
skin where heat is evaporated off while also still efficiently supplying
muscles.Effective sweating starting
earlier helps dissipate heat before the thermoregulatory system is overloaded
i.e. overheating occurs.Aerobic
metabolism, while the best way to get energy for muscle contraction, is very
inefficient and produces large amounts of heat.This significant amount of heat production during exercise explains why
efficient cooling is so important.

Now we understand the different
systems and how they are enhanced by a conditioning program.There are many ways to approach starting a
conditioning program depending on your horse’s job.The basics of this will be covered in our
next blog post.Please stay tuned for
more information and tips on how to successfully and safely get your horse
fit.In the meantime Dr. Oehling would
be happy to answer any questions you may have about conditioning and how it
applies to your specific horse and situation.